Under the sparkling stars
The carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” paints a Christmas card picture of the ancient town of the Nativity: sparkling stars lighting quiet streets, a Holy Baby resting in a manger as the townspeople sleep, unaware. That idyllic view was replaced by a fuller perspective when my family moved to Israel in 1996. What drew…
The importance of patience in settling marital conflict
(This Viewpoint piece was inspired by Christina Bartel Barkman’s recent “Marriage and conflict” column.) Conflicts seem to occur even in the best marriages, and sometimes even church policies can become the cause of a marriage conflict. There are different ways of solving them. Sometimes patience is more effective than “fighting it out.” I was married…
Pandemic denies us shared rituals of grief
By everything that is right and good, Helen Penner’s life should have been celebrated with singing. Singing was a passion for her and her late husband John, and they ensured their eight children found their melodic voices at an early age. The kids grew up singing in church, blending their voices in the four-part harmony…
‘Why don’t we have a food-truck night?’
Let me tell you a story. A couple of years ago, our church council did some brainstorming around how to begin reaching out to our neighbours. Because our church is located in a rural community, the possibilities are limited and come with significant hurdles. During the discussion, one person piped up, “Why don’t we have…
COVID creativity: Cards, buns and wreaths
Like most of the country, Alberta is experiencing, its second wave of novel coronavirus. As of early December, as many as 1,800 Albertans were contracting COVID-19 every day. With the Christmas season approaching, every church had to look at past traditions and ask whether to try to alter them in some way or to cancel…
Resourcing the church in transition
“People talk about church decline,” says Ryan Siemens. “I prefer to talk about church transition.” Lately, he’s been thinking a lot about church transition, and wondering, “What are we being called to open ourselves up to?” Siemens, who is Mennonite Church Saskatchewan’s executive minister, thinks the church’s future lies in mission at a local, congregational…
‘A monument for our resilience’
Janet Bauman recently participated in a 45-minute virtual tour of the former Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ont., with other people from St. Jacobs Mennonite Church; it fit in with the congregation’s worship series on unlearning racism. Carley Gallant-Jenkins, who currently works as the Save the Evidence coordinator for the Woodland Cultural Centre, served…
Meditations while sheltering in place
Evan Kreider was scheduled to speak at Point Grey Inter-Mennonite Fellowship in Vancouver in the spring of 2020. But the pandemic put an end to that, as life as we knew it changed. Group meetings were discouraged. The timing coincided with the church’s plan to depart the chapel of the Menno Simons Centre, a student…
Pandemic fund targets inequalities in global church
“What a joy it is for the brothers and sisters [of the Bateke Plateau] to feel themselves a part of the larger Mennonite family,” says Reverend Seraphin Kutumbana of Communauté Mennonite au Congo, a Mennonite World Conference (MWC) member church. Comite National Inter Mennonite (CONIM) brought together MWC national member churches Communauté Mennonite au Congo,…
